Uswagg. Wow. I mean,
...wow. more like SLUHswagg, am I right? swag swag swag swag swag swag swag swag. swag swag swag swag Mr. swag gag Ugag.
Hello reader, We’re always looking for essays, poems, short stories, reviews, recipes, howtos, jokes, microfiction, proofs, drawings, illustration, designs, photoshops, small children, donations, gyros, kidnapping plots, bananas, etc. If there’s something you want published, send it our way at gadfly@sluh.org or by slipping it under the door to M125. Thanks for reading this little stack of paper. We hope you enjoy. —Giuseppe Vitellaro and David Burke
“…our city is like a large horse which because of its size is inclined to be lazy and needs the stimulation of a gadfly… before long you will awake from your drowsing, and in annoyance take Anytus’s advice and swat me; and then you will go on sleeping.”
GADFLY M AY 2 0 1 5
CHEESY PANCAKES Giuseppe VItellaro David Burke Sam Fentress Hap Burke Joe Godar Brian Luczak Michael Neuhoff Kevin Thomas Paul Daues Kevin Strader Keith Thomas Salvatore Vitellaro Frank Corley Matt Sciuto Joe Komos David Callon
CONCERT CALENDAR Dates listed are opening nights.
6/01 6/01 6/02 6/02 6/02 6/02 6/03 6/03 6/04 6/04 6/05 6/05 6/05 6/05 6/06 6/06 6/06 6/07 6/07 6/09 6/09 6/09 6/10 6/10 6/10 6/11 6/11 6/13 6/13 6/14 6/15 6/15 6/15 6/16 6/16 6/17 6/18 6/19 6/19 6/19 6/19
Speedy Ortiz Tame Impala Grieves Voices of St. Louis Multiple Sclerosis Benefit Brandi Carlile Pulitzer Concert #2 Route 66 Jazz Orchestra Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox Slim Cessna’s Auto Club Andy Waggoner’s Pianoman Matt Braunger JazzU & the Jazz St. Louis All-Stars Night Riots Chris Botti Via Dove’s Farewell Show Music of the Eagles Sounds of Simon & Garfunkel Electric Six The Script Pattern Is Movement Paul Bonn and the Bluesmen Mike Gordon Unknown Moral Orchestra White Lung Terence Blanchard mae Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals Hollywood Ending Nneka Kyle Dunnigan Melvins My Fair Lady Michael Franti & Spearhead Marcus Miller Cortango Orquesta Civil Twilight Potluck Radio Birds Bob DeBoo, Dave Stone, Montez Coleman Peter Bradley Adams Floetry
Firebird The Pageant The Demo Sheldon Hall The Pageant Powell Hall Jazz at the Bistro The Pageant Firebird Jazz at the Bistro Firebird Jazz at the Bistro Blueberry Hill Powell Hall Firebird Powell Hall Powell Hall Firebird The Pageant Firebird Sheldon Hall The Pageant Firebird The Demo Jazz at the Bistro Firebird The Pageant Firebird Blueberry Hill Firebird FIrebird The Muny The Pageant Jazz at the Bistro Sheldon Hall Firebird Firebird Firebird Jazz at the Bistro Blueberry Hill The Pageant
6/19 6/19 6/20 6/20 6/21 6/21 6/21 6/21 6/23 6/23 6/23 6/24 6/24 6/25 6/25 6/26 6/26 6/26 6/26 6/27 6/27 6/27 6/28 6/28 6/29 6/29 7/01 7/02 7/02 7/06 7/07 7/09 7/10 7/10 7/10 7/11 7/13 7/14 7/14 7/15 7/15 7/16 7/18 7/21 7/22
Classical Mystery Tour: A Beatles Tribute Tribute to St. Louis Saxophonists Tyler, the Creator A Capella Live! ft. Ambassadors of Harmony Hollow Earth Pamela Rose: Wild Women of Song Dawes My Sinatra Dads Hairspray The Smashin Pumpkins: In Plainsong Lindsey Stirling: The Music Box Tour Rodrigo y Gabriela M.O.P. An Evening With Sloan Babes in Brassland ft. the Randy Dandies Rat Rod Kings Graham Nash Music of U2 Mates of State Tassels ‘n’ Tunes ft the Randy Dandies Justin Furstenfeld of Blue October Cue Weird Al Yankovic I The Mighty The Tallest Man on Earth Tanlines Betty Who X Ambassadors Irving Berlin’s Holiday Inn John Fogerty Performs the Songs of CCR Wyatt Quaere Verum Denise Thimes Corey Smith Words Like Daggers Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story Hour 24 Meghan Trainor: The MTrain tour Sage Francis Rob Thomas Ringo Deathstarr Anita Jackson Into The Woods Marilyn Mae
Powell Hall The Touhill The Pageant The Touhill Firebird Jazz at the Bistro The Pageant Powell Hall Firebird The Muny The Pageant The Fox The Pageant Firebird Blueberry Hill Jazz at the Bistro Blueberry Hill The Pageant Powell Hall Firebird Jazz at the Bistro Blueberry Hill Firebird The Peabody Firebird The Pageant Firebird Firebird Blueberry Hill The Muny The Fox Firebird Firebird Jazz at the Bistro The Pageant Firebird The Muny Firebird The Pageant Firebird The Peabody Firebird Jazz at the Bistro The Muny Sheldon Hall
7/23 7/23 7/23 7/24 7/24 7/24 7/24 7/25 7/28 7/29 7/30 7/31 8/01 8/03 8/03 8/06 8/07 8/08 8/08 8/09 8/10 8/12 8/12 8/21 8/22 8/23 8/28
Big Bands & Baseballs Jason Robert Brown Fifth Harmony The Ting Tings Montez Coleman Group ft. Russell Gunn MOVE Live On Tour Christine Ebersole The Fog Lights An Evening With Harry Connick, Jr. Beauty and The Beast Jazz & the Negro Leagues Good 4 the Soul Rob Bell Givers Alice in Chains Fireworks Saturday Night Fish Fry ft. Big Mike Aguirre Rocky Votolato Ruben Studdard Charli XCX & Bleachers Oklahoma! Callaghan My Morning Jacket Basie’s Birthday Bash with the JazzSTL Big Band Michael McDonald Those Were the Days: The Wurlitzer Organ Javier Mendoza’s Estereotipo
Jazz at the Bistro Sheldon Hall The Peabody Firebird Jazz at the Bistro The Fox Sheldon Hall Blueberry Hill The Peabody The Muny Jazz at the Bistro Jazz at the Bistro The Pageant Firebird The Pageant Firebird Jazz at the Bistro Firebird The Pageant The Pageant The Muny Blueberry Hill The Peabody Jazz at the Bistro Sheldon Hall The Fox Jazz at the Bistro
WE RECOMMEND
CHRIS BOTTI 6/05
WEIRD AL 6/28
MY MORNING JACKET 8/12
OLD STANDARD FRIED CHICKEN
O
BY KEITH THOMAS
N one weekend in April, my mom surprised me by taking me to the restaraunt Old Standard Fried Chicken. Old Standard is nestled into the Tower Grove neighborhood, where restaurateur Ben Porembo has three joints: Old Standard, Elaia, and Olio. Old Standard is the cheapest of the three, although the prices are higher than you might expect—a reflection of the quality and service of the restaurant. The ambience of Old Standard was impressive; I felt welcomed by the wooden, down-home theme of the restaurant. The bar, where my mother and I sat due to the packed restaurant, was crafted out of real wood, as were as the high-rise chairs. A drink menu offered craft sodas from around the nation. I chose Ale-
81 (pronounced ‘a late one’), a fruity ale with small hints of ginger. The bottle came straight out of a chilled cooler, and tasted delicious. Old Standard also offers handmade fountain sodas, a pleasant rarity, since canned and bottled soda have become the overwhelming standard. Old Standard’s appetizers (“snacks”) catered toward classic Southern snacks. The list includes Charlotte’s Mother’s Dressed Eggs, Nobody’s Boiled Peanut Hummus, and Mrs. Arnold’s Saturday Night Fried Shrimps. We opted for Mrs. Edna Mae’s Pimento Cheese, which came with a few horseradish pickles. The dish came out with eight slices of toasted, homemade artisan bread. The pimento’s spiciness paired well with the toasted bread, and the pick-
les offered a taste both spicy and bitter, a welcome surprise to my desperate taste buds. After the delicious pimento, we ordered a whole chicken, which comes with two each of thighs, legs, breasts, and wings, and three sides. The largest option at Old Standard, the whole chicken feeds four to six (they also offer a half chicken and other smaller combinations of chicken and sides). The meal came out fresh and hot. The first bite into the chicken was incredible; Colonel Sanders would be impressed. The breading on the chicken was crispy, hot, and a little bit spicy, and the actual chicken itself was moist, fully cooked, and dense. The amount of spice was just right for the chicken, although I added some hot sauce for more flavor. For the sides, we chose the mashed potatoes with chicken gravy, Betty Meade’s cream corn, and the homemade mac & cheese. While the mashed potatoes and cream corn
were both filling and delicious, the highlight of the sides was far and away the mac & cheese. The cheese on top was slightly burnt for decoration, but underneath the crispy noodles was a sea of oozing cheesy goodness. We skipped out on dessert, but Old Standard offers southern staples such as Banana Pudding and Breadpuddin’. I especially liked their collaboration with local ice creamery Clementine’s for the Naughty & Nice Ice Creams. VERDICT: 4.5/5 STARS The service was a huge plus for Old Standard; whenever we needed something, it was in front of us within the minute. The atmosphere complimented the food, and the food itself was exceptional. Old Standard is somewhat pricey (a whole chicken costs $30), but the quality of the food was well worth the steeper prices.
M
CP PINBALL
BY MICHAEL NEUHOFF
Y friends have said that the best way to describe the place is “sketchy”. I suppose it is strange to drive an hour away from home, twice a month, to spend six hours in three small buildings in a town best known for its oil refinery, but to me it couldn’t be more natural. CP Pinball is an arcade in South Roxana Illinois that houses nearly 80 pinball machines and not much else. I found out about CP after scouring the internet for the best place to play pinball in Missouri, only to discover that the place I was really looking for was across the Mississippi. It took a long time to explain to my mother why an out-of-state pinball trip was a good idea, but eventually she complied, and I have been going there regularly ever since. Each room is kept in a utilitarian state where the most important parts are kept immaculately clean and the rest are left alone. If I had to eat off one surface at CP, it would be the play-field of the “Creature from the Black Lagoon” pinball machine. The lighting of each room is balanced so as to allow players to see what they are doing, without drowning out each game’s unique light show. Every single machine has an industrial-strength universal cup holder bolted to one of the legs, and all of the games are set to free play. The place has a unique damp and slightly musty aroma which I’ve grown to appreciate. The people who frequent CP Pinball cannot be pigeonholed into any particular set of interests other than a love for pinball, and perhaps an unusual fondness for progressive rock. Pinball-fever doesn’t seem to favor
any particular generation, as the players at CP vary in age from teens to forties and have many different occupations. I fit somewhere into the mix as the high school student intent on learning all that I can about the games. Our often intense battles with the machines are broken up by an assortment of verbal and nonverbal communications. I ask Dennis, the software programmer in his twenties, about the song jackpot multiplier on “AC/DC”, and he explains how it is related to the LED inserts on the playfield. I show Alexander how to perform a cradle separation when two balls are on one flipper, and he tells me how to improve my slap saves. I nod to the woman next to me who achieved a replay on “The Simpsons’ Pinball Party”, signaled by an deafening mechanical screech. For me, the appeal of pinball lies in the degree of skill and knowledge required to master a game as well as the mechanical action of the machine itself. Even a single combination shot, like the “Picard Maneuver” on “Star Trek the Next Generation pinball”, requires a marriage of strategy, rhythm, and experience which I find exhilarating. The games allow me to be as competitive or as relaxed as I like, and I enjoy finding that balance when playing with others. But most of all, pinball has taught me to value my own achievements, no matter how small. Perhaps someone who has never played would wonder why, but I jump for joy when I punch my initials into a high-score board after accumulating enough imaginary points, and I celebrate winning credits for a game that is on free-play.
W
FIRST GRADE BY DAVID CALLON
E arrived in Arkansas early in April of 1982 threequarters of the way through first grade. Mom went straight to the hospital for surgery on her ruptured stomach. A new school was a scary prospect, so dad gave me a week to acclimate before sending me on the bus that roared and rattled down our road each morning. I could always hear it about ninety seconds before I could see it. It coasted down the hill up the road, splashed over the muddy potholes at the bottom of the hill, and then downshifted loudly up the steep hill before the corner, the hill I couldn’t bike all the way up without pushing until well into middle school. The first day I watched with mom and dad from his bedroom window as its top half, the only part we could see, stopped at the small white house across from the barn and then hummed slowly to our own dirt drive, which it used to turn around—not a friendly affair. Stern-faced, the driver wrestled with the powerless steering wheel like a sailor with a submarine hatch. In between turns of the wheel, he fought the long gear shift back and forth, side to side, all the while trying to avoid the Sycamore at the end of our drive and the barbed wire fence that hugged the edge of the road, which was just wider than the bus itself. The back end of the bus would just kiss the fence as the high schoolers in the back shouted “woh!” And then bus driver Terry pressed meanly on the gas pedal and glanced at
his watch As it pulled away, a glorious tempest of dust, gold-speckled, rose from its tail in the morning sun. . From the window of the house, it looked pretty romantic. We observed this ritual for a week. I grew a little more anxious each day, knowing that on Monday I’d step on the yellow behemoth, the only boy on the route with front door service. Inside, romance gave way to gritty realism. I was the last stop on the Blue Eye route. After our dirt road, there was ten miles of smooth going on Highway 103. Only a few seats still had a single kid in them, and most of these were occupied by the sort of boy who leaned his backs against the window, plopped his left arm on the back of the seat, and laid his leg lengthwise across the seat, its often booted foot sticking into the aisle, unwilling to yield to California pipsqueaks like me. It didn’t help that I had big ears and a high fade haircut with a grown man’s Brylcreemed part. It didn’t help, either, that on dry days the entire bus full of kids were baptized again and again in a full immersion of swirling dust that tasted, well, like chalky, gritty dust. The older kids in the back had to endure a few inches of stomach-dropping airlift at the bottom of the u-shaped hill. I think some kids hated me even before they met me. Sometimes I climbed those deep, tall steps only to be greeted with a round of “Boos” that the driver never really tried to quell. Once the three Chadwick kids stopped riding the bus, Terry refused to come down
the road altogether. So I had to get up even earlier for the twenty-minute trek to the end of the road or, on cold days, wait with dad in the truck. Curt was a mean bastard. His dad ran the station on the corner of the Oak Grove four-way, the one everybody called “Tommy’s.” His kid was two or three years older than me, and since just about everyone sat in the same seat everyday, I ended up in the spot nobody else wanted—the one in front of him. He loved flicking my ears and head with his middle finger. “Quit it,” I’d whine, “It’s not funny!” For him, though, such meanness seemed his deepest pleasure in life. As hard as I tried not to cry, sometimes the tears showed up anyway. “What’s the matter, big ears? Are you a little baby?” “I am not a little baby,” I’d glance back and insist before turning around and trying to sink my ears into my jacket like a turtle. Eventually he’d get bored or hassled enough by some other kid to stop. After a couple weeks of this, my fortunes changed. My neighbor, Schylor (everyone called him Sky), shook the social order of the bus. “Hey little man!” he shouted one morning as he motioned for me toward the very back, the boys and girls bigger and older as I passed each seat. My chest tightened, ready for the worst. A high schooler with a dark mustache and an already receding hairline, Sky wore tight Levis over pointed-toe boots. He was the real deal. And he took pity on my plight and let me sit next to him. The older girls thought my big ears, my groomed hair and snap button shirts were pretty damn cute. “Do you want to be my boyfriend, David?”
they’d say playfully, and sometimes I’d even get a kiss me on the cheek. After awhile, I ended up back in my old seat. But I can’t remember getting my ears flicked after that.
N
OT many new kids showed up in Green Forest, especially during the school year. They stuck me in Mrs. Ruff’s class. She, too, was the real Arkansas deal. A kind, small woman with stern control of her classroom, she had a thick Ozark accent I had only before encountered in some butchered form on Beverly Hillbillies reruns. At some point on the first day, she gave us a math worksheet that involved coloring. I sat right in front of her tall desk as she looked down on me like a tribunal judge. After a spell she leaned toward me and in a soft voice asked, “David, how much do you lack?” But this is not what I heard. “Day-vid,” she asked, with much more emphasis on the “Day” than I was used to, ”how muhch dew ewe like?” That’s what I heard. And so I just looked back at her blankly. “How muhch dew ewe like?” she asked again a little louder. “I don’t know” was the only thing I could answer. The question made no sense. By now, the kids next to me, already waiting, were peeking over suspiciously. How could a kid not know the answer to such a simple question? Where would such a boy come from? California? Mrs. Ruff’s brow lowered into a confused position as I began to realize that this first day was beginning to confirm all my fears about starting a new school in April. She tried again louder, more slowly. “Dayyy—viid, how . . muhch . .
.dew...ewe…like?” By now the whole class was watching the show, shifting about in their metal desks. California was so very far away. By now the “I . . . don’t . . . understand,” I muttered, “I like it just fine.” “No. LACK. LACK,” she emphasized slowly as she walked around toward my desk. Realizing my dilemma, she sounded out the rest of the words in clearer English as a grown-up on Sesame Street might to a confused puppet. I understood the words perfectly now, but I had no idea what “lack” meant, and so once again I answered in a choked voice, “I don’t know,” this time with tears welling my eyes. Finally, in a kind, quiet voice she asked, “Day-vid, how muhch dew ewe have left too dew?” “Oh. I’m almost finished.” Even had I known the definition of “lack” or that on the Ozark plateau an “a” could sound more like an “I,” I’d still have looked like the dull boy suffering from a sub-standard California education, the kid who didn’t know that “lack” obviously meant “have left to do.” Suddenly, that bus ride home seemed like the best thing in the world. The rest of first grade wasn’t so bad. Yes, Mrs. Ruff had to paddle me in the hall once with what looked like a short cricket stick with dime-sized holes scattered about. I doubt such a weapon was still legal in California; I never heard of paddling back at Vena Elementary. Yes, I was the sort of kid who had to wear Packrat knock-off sneakers from Wal-Mart while others got to wear the coveted Kangaroos. At least we both all had Velcro pockets on our shoes. ✶ ✶ ✶
B
ACK in at Vena, a playground meant a quarter acre of cracked black asphalt with all sorts of white lines painted on them. For recess, we ran around in the SoCal sun arguing about who got to be Hans Solo and who got to be Princess Leia, the white lines sometimes the ominous boundaries between the good and the dark sides of The Force. Mostly, though, we just shot at each other with fake blasters and tried not to shred our knees and hands as we ducked and weaved those rays of death. “I killed you,” my friend George, a dark-skinned kid, would say, “you’re dead.” “No! — I ducked and then sped away in my ship before you get me!”
G
REEN Forest elementary had no black kids, but its playground had four inches of pea gravel, a twelve-foot high swing set, tall metal slides and a treated wood clubhouse. We’d pump our swings so high until a moment of weightlessness when our chains slacked, giving us good jolts as they popped taut on the way down. It was our mission every recess (when we were lucky enough to wrangle a swing from an older kid) to do a full 360 around the top of the swing as one kid had done though nobody could ever agree on who it was or when it actually happened. Nonetheless, the story was true enough to keep us trying. More audacious kids than I would, when the teachers weren’t looking, dare each other to jump into the gravel from stupider and stupider heights until somebody broke an arm and a teachersentinel was posted nearby and made
sure everyone got a safe turn. Cross-country move and all, it was a great year.
Y
OU learn a lot at six. Your mind is a tune-fork. It’s flexible, too. It didn’t take long for me to realize that it was I who had the accent, not them. Or rather, it was me—no respectable fellow would say otherwise. Mom started correcting me at home. “Please don’t say ‘ain’t’—it’s not a word. Say, ‘I will not’ or “I’m going to’—that’s the proper way.” Mrs. Ruff told us the same thing, even if, as we liked to point out, “ain’t” was, in fact, a bona fide word on one of the first pages of the dictionary. “That doesn’t make it right,” she’d insist, “especially in this classroom.” And so it was relegated to the cafeteria and to the playground where most everybody used it and corrected each other at the same as if it were (was) a “four-letter” word. If I’ws gona fit een, then I was going to have to stop talking funny. “Fit” and “sit,” for instance, were two-syllable words—almost. F’it. S’it. Other words like “pie” got shorter. Instead
of trailing down into a short “e” at the end, folks just left hanging at “I.” Pi. “I,” as in “I was too busy to notice” was two notes higher than the way we said it at home; it sounded more like a pirate’s “Aye, Aye Cap’n!” When Mom and I took the Trailways bus back after 2nd grade to get Grandma Salisbury, my relatives in South Gate had a hoot listening to me. “Say “Do you like pie!,” my Aunt Pat would blurt out as if we were playing Hick Speak, a the hilarious new board game from Parker Brothers. “Dew ewe liiikuh pi,” I’d repeat proudly, ratcheting up the accent for added effect. Even mom thought it was funny. It wasn’t long until she and dad caught on, too. Gradually, many animals and inanimate objects took a feminine form as “she” or “her.” “I don’t know what’s wrong with her,” Dad might say of the used yellow tractor he bought off Tradio, “she just won’t turn over.” “I saw” slowly gave way to “I seen,” a habit that I couldn’t shake until my second year of college, and only after just about everyone I knew kept correcting me.
DOCTOR’S APPOINTMENT WE ASK THE CALLON-MAN ABOUT HIS BOOK WHAT HAS THE SABBATICAL BEEN LIKE? DESCRIBE A TYPICAL DAY. After the kids are off to school, it can go in any number of directions. A lot of the time I sit down with some coffee and read the entire Post-Dispatch. Even the obituaries. For those readers unfamiliar with “Post-Dispatch,” it’s a daily newspaper printed on actual paper that some fellow throws out the window of a shady van every morning. It’s wrapped in a little green or brown plastic baggie that doubles as a great poop scoop later on in the day (dog poop, not mine). Anyway, back to the typical day. A typical day in the first half of the sabbatical involved a lot of reading and researching and combing through photos and creating an extensive family gene-
alogy that goes back into the 17th century for one strand. I spent about 9 days with relatives in California, recording all my conversations and visiting the spaces that formed my family. For the last few months it has been just me fighting with the screen for most of the day. It takes me a long time to really get working, even though I’m sitting down with all my materials out. Almost every day, though, I find this groove where two or three hours can feel like thirty minutes. And then it leaves me again and I wonder why I didn’t get more done. It’s funny—every day feels like a small failure, but then all those failures amount over the course of a semester to 250 pages—an entire draft of a book. You’d think I’d feel proud of
that, but even now I’m fretting about all the revision, all the work left. As a rule, I’ve not done any writing in the evening. So it’s been an 9-4 sort of thing most days. ANYTHING SURPRISING/UNEXPECTED (GOOD OR BAD) ABOUT THE SABBATICAL/WRITING? At first I smacked my head on the table a lot saying, “what in the hell were you thinking, Callon?!” I figured I had duped myself into thinking that my family and my life was interesting enough to write about for more than 50-70 pages. But those pages came very fast, and now I fret about all the things I probably won’t be able to write for lack of space and time. Best of all, though, are the connections I’ve made to relatives I’ve never met and, in the case of one aunt, I never knew I had. I’ve grown up with virtually no sense of my aunts and uncles and cousins. I have a lot better sense of that now, and it feels good. DO YOU GET LOTS OF QUESTIONS ABOUT THE BOOK? Lord almighty, yes—and they’re always awkward. I play softball on Thursday nights. It’s a new team. I seem like this normal dude who drinks beer on the sidelines and tries to relive the bygone glory on the field. But then someone will wonder why I’m free to shag fly balls on Thursday afternoon and I’ll say “I’m a teacher on sabbatical.” It sounds so sexy, so mysterious. “What does that mean,” a fellow like
Mike the fireman might say. “Well, I’m working on this family story, a memoir.” I hate the word “memoir.” Unless you butcher the word with a hard “wire” at the end or countifry it up with a “wahr,” you sound so damn pretentious when you say it. Maybe I just feel uncomfortable proclaiming that I think my story is worthy enough to share. “What’s it about?” people ask. It’s like being asked “How are you?” The real answer is always way too complicated, so we just offer a friendly little lie—”great!” I’ll usually just try to say that “well, my parents were pretty interesting people—they didn’t get along much, but they gave me a pretty cool childhood.” WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE IDEA OF YOUR BOOK AS SLUH SUMMER READING? Hells yeah! I’d make like $3500 off them apples. But then again, it’d be hard to deal with the awkwardness of working every day with folks who, behind your back, said things like, “I didn’t see the point of the book, really” or “I didn’t read it—did you?” or “honestly, that’s messed up.” HAVE YOU SEEN THE ENGLISH OFFICE? Yes. I’m glad we could finally air the printer grievance. Where was Megan Dempsey? WILL YOU BE JOINING US FOR GADFEST? Like a buzzards on a smooshed cat, baby!
DINER
BY GIUSEPPE VITELLARO
W
E are in a freaking diner,” Brian said. “Shut up,” Steve replied. Brian turned towards Steve. “What do you mean?” “I mean shut up.” Brian turned back towards his plate. He had ordered a slinger. It was pretty good. Damn good. Hellaciously good. He began panting. So freaking good. His stomach rumbled. “Ha ha ha, you sack,” it said. His eyes widened. He began to scream. “What the hell are you doing? We’re in a freaking diner!” Steve yelled. Brian turned towards him, his skin vibrating. “Try it, dude!” Steve took a bite. “Oh yeah!” They snarfed the grub down like hogs—no, like chainsaw-elephantcrocodile-lumberjacks. The air in the diner flowed around them. It picked up speed and began to roar. They kept eating faster, no longer using the silverware. The food began to rise off the plate into their whining jet turbine mouths. A fork flew up and tore a gash in Brian’s cheek, but he kept eating. Blood oozed from Steve’s eyes. And then there was no more food. Their plates had been sucked
dry. They stared at the dishes for a moment, then grabbed them and smashed them against their faces. “Nothing like good eats to get the heart pumping!” Steve bellowed at his friend. They both pulled out handguns and started shooting napkin holders. The other patrons, used to these sorts of shenanigans, were unfazed. Upon running out of bullets, Steve and Brian began hurling hand grenades around the room. One landed in a man’s bowl of chili before detonating and spraying the man’s face with beans and meat. A little kid ran up to them. “Hey mister, will you give me a dollar for the jukebox?” Tears began to pool in Brian’s eyes as he thought back to his own youth. Steve leaned over to the kid. “Here you go, little girl.” He threw a grenade at the jukebox. “You freaking panhandler.” They slapped forty bucks on the table and jumped through a window onto their sweet motorcycles before doing four hundred wheelies, which impressed the customers in the diner and produced enough smoke to block out the sun and plunge the city into darkness.
NOW WHAT? BY PAUL DAUES
“In the constellation of Cygnus, There lurks a mysterious, invisible force: The black hole of Cygnus X-1. Six stars of the Northern Cross, In mourning for their sister’s loss, In a final flash of glory, nevermore to grace the night.” —“Cygnus X-1” by Rush
O
“
OPS—must have left it on 98.1.” On a January evening, for the first time in a month or two, the ancient, beat-up panasonic analog radio sitting atop the box stack on my desk lit up, and familiar airwaves streamed through the cloth speakers amongst shifting static and a quiet whine at some nearly indiscernible pitch. The bandwidth indicator had alway been a bit higher than the actual station frequency, so seeing the two mismatch was nothing new. A turn of the dial—“Huh? No, that’s KSHE: did I miss it?” A few cranks later, my ears met a terrifying phrase: “Welcome to NOW 96.3!” This is tragedy. For the years I’ve been listening to the radio I’ve always appreciated St. Louis station variety. I’d listen to all of them fairly evenly, but I had always laid my preferences at 96.3. The classic rock I grew up listening to and the tunes of forgotten pop stars were my fallback whenever I was bored or wanted to look for something new. Only occasionally would I hear anything that I couldn’t enjoy (why “Breakfast in America” hasn’t become obscure yet I have yet to understand). In time, I could comfortably say that 96.3 was my
favorite station. “Was.” Past tense. I liken the feeling I had hearing that horrible phrase to that of some man who coming home to his family finds them replaced by rats. Over those past few months I hadn’t been listening much to the radio; a trove of iTunes gift cards has left me exploring Pink Floyd, Talking Heads, and, most recently, The La’s. I also returned to Rush and some of the other rock bands I grew up with. When Ifound that unpleasant surprise on the 96.3 bandwidth, I quickly researched exactly what had happened. Apparently, station management made the shift in an effort to compete with iHeart Media’s top 40 station, Z-107.7. That decision makes little sense. For one, under what circumstances would competition from a locally owned-and-operated radio station force a multi-billion dollar corporation like iHeart Media to pull one of their major stakes out of an area? I know I’m a bit pessimistic, but any Stats student can tell you how slim those odds are. Less-than-chiefy, St. Louis already has three other modern pop/ top 40 stations. That need is fulfilled. Really, the only chance that KNOU
has of beating out Z is if the listening public realizes that Z is the sonic, cultural manifestation of cancer. (I kid you not—I’ve heard 3 songs and an ad played on that station simultaneously, followed by a solid minute-anda-half of dead air.) But enough about Z; I’m confident that the water there will find its own level eventually. I fear that this new incision of top 40 into the public ear may be indicative of a trend of replacement in the years to come. As we all know, the first generation of rock is getting into an extreme age (Chuck Berry has 88 years at press time), so at this point we’re not going to have most of the real rock stars with us for very long. Without these pioneers, rock and roll as it was will be replaced by newer rock, like progressive and (*shudder*) metal. The rock of the 20th century will go the way of Elvis; relegated to history books, constant album remasters and re-releases and dusty shelves in whatever traditional record stores may be left. Without the founders, classic rock will flounder (not unlike a SLUH club founded entirely by seniors a few months before graduation). This has already begun to occur, as a majority of bands from the classic rock era are no longer touring, and have not toured for quite a while. Now, the only ways to experience their legacy are buying ancient albums and hearing what little radio play they still receive.
The tragedy in the fall of KHITS does not so much lie in the fact that a good radio station was lost, but in that a classic hits radio station was replaced. There’s already an excess of modern music stations, but without a classic hits station, those are no longer being picked up by young, impressionable listeners. In time, trends of replacement could potentially nullify the prominence of classic music—a future vision which I, for one, refuse to accept. So now what? Does rock roll over to die? Should we set into motion some grand audio revolution? Where do the classics go from here? Well, the only thing to do really is keep in mind that what is good is not always popular, and what is popular is not always good. The tradition of classic music can always be perpetuated as just that—a tradition. Personally, the best tunes I know all were discoveries—whether they were recommended by a friend, pulled off of an old cassette tape, or stumbled upon during aimless online wandering. If the popular consensus abandons classic music, then it’s up to us to hold it for the next generation to discover. I’ll miss KHITS greatly, but it isn’t the end of the world. I’ll continue to find more great classic music and look more into artists I already know. Do the same if you like; a little discovery never hurt anyone.
GADFLY RECOMMENDS DISCO. WHEN YOU READ THAT WORD I’m sure your thoughts resembled, “Isn’t that, like, the Bee Gees?” Yes, but there’s a lot more to disco than just “Stayin’ Alive.” Dictionary-wise, disco is “pop music intended mainly for dancing to…, typically soul-influenced and melodic with a regular bass beat and popular particularly in the late 1970s.” Yes, that’s the bland, basic characterization, but as with most things found in dictionaries, there’s more inside than listed on the package. You might say that the Bee Gees are the only disco band you’ve heard, but if you’ve heard the Village People (YMCA), KC and the Sunshine band (Get Down Tonight), or Daft Punk (don’t pretend you haven’t heard Daft Punk, all you kids reading this), you’ve heard disco. Lyrics-wise, disco doesn’t go as deep as say, Rock and Roll, but so what? Disco is dance music; feel-good music. It’s that tune playing in your head when you find out you’ve got an unexpected free period: it’s your jumping around once you finally beat your friend in Street Fighter: if you’re happy and you feel like there’s nothing between you and the top of the world, that’s disco spirit—“fever” to those in the know. So try it out. Get groovy. Just because the 70s are over doesn’t mean they’re really gone. (The only part I don’t recommend: leisure suits. That might get you a Saturday JUG.) —Paul Daues ANYONE WITH A NINTENDO DS COULD easily make a list of fantastic games the system offered. There was no shortage of fantastic games. One of
my absolute favorite games for the DS is one that most people have never heard of. It’s called Rhythm Heaven. Published by Nintendo themselves, Rhythm Heaven was released in April 2009. The game is a mini game collection that is played using the touch screen with the DS held like a book. Rhythm Heaven places the focus where it should be, on the music. Each game is designed around the music being played. As a result, the game’s music fits seamlessly with the gameplay, giving each action a satisfying feel. The music itself is excellent, featuring plenty of catchy and enjoyable tunes. To go along with the music, each game features a cast of colorful characters. These characters add an extra dash of personality that make the game all the more fun. As a result, the game feels even more alive. Rhythm Heaven is a spectacular game that should be played by any Nintendo DS owner. It is a hidden gem on the system. Rhythm Heaven originally sold for $30. It is out of print now, but can probably be found online for a decent price. —David Burke PEDRO ARRUPE: ESSENTIAL WRITINGS As noted in the introduction, the collection includes but a small portion of the writings of Pedro Arrupe, SJ. Though much of his works incorporated an advanced theological vocabulary, these were selected for their ability to be understood and universally applied. The first portion
chronicles his life as a Jesuit, beginning with his witness to the bombing of Hiroshima and concluding with his reflection on being a Jesuit for fifty years, and it becomes apparent that Fr. Arrupe wrote from intense personal experience in addition to prayerful ruminations. A good deal of the later works focus on the person of St. Ignatius and provide helpful reflections for those not closely familiar with Ignatian spirituality. The fourth section, titled “THE WORLD,” offers an insight into how the Society’s famed focus on justice came to be in the latter half of the twentieth century. In this section is found his perhaps most well known work, “Men and Women for Others,” which I hold to be a necessity for all involved in Jesuit education. As a whole, the collection is aptly named as it allows those who read it “to meet-perhaps for the first time-one of the great Christians of our age” (James Martin, SJ). —Salvatore Vitellaro
IF YOU HAPPEN TO BE TRAVELLING through the streets of Paris in the mid-2000s and got extremely lucky, you might find camped outside your local restaurant a chorus of trumpets, a shrill of violins, a syncopated percussion section, and the lovely voice of Zach Condon. Welcome to the orchestral indie folk band known as Beirut. With influences from french culture as well as parts of the middle east as their name implies, it’s quite difficult to describe their sound from its diversity of cultures and various instruments. If you’re hoping to get a glimpse of Beirut, I would highly suggest their album Flying Club Cup with songs such as “Nantes” and “The Penalty,” as well as “Santa Fe” from their album The Rip Tide and singles such as “Elephant Gun.” For unedited videos of Beirut jamming through the streets of Paris, be sure to check out Beirut: A Take Away Show on Youtube. —Brian Luczak
I’VE ALWAYS LOVED THE MIDTOWN Pulitzer Arts Foundation, for the zenlike simplicity of its architecture and the stunning collection of art displayed there. The new exhibit of three artists re-opens the gallery after an extended hiatus, and it was certainly worth the wait. Richard Tuttle’s wire sculptures, mounted on a white wall, were augmented by pencil lines written on the wall. The combination of wire, pencil and shadow made for a lovely interplay of lines which called for strong focus to separate and integrate. Alexander Calder’s pieces were a wide range of mobiles, an artform he himself created. Like Tuttle’s fixed pieces, the mobiles themselves delicately and playfully interacted with their own shadows as they swayed and twirled with the movement of the air. The mobiles presented a modern dance between the strength of their two-dimensional objects and the fragility the wires holding and connecting them.
My favorite art here, though, was the exhibit of Fred Sandback’s 64 Three-Part Pieces. The piece consists of three lengths of yarn, stretched taut across a room at a certain angle and a certain height. Sandback has described sixty-four different positions of the yarn, and the curator is his partner as she decides how to reposition the yarn each week. Two aspects of this piece excited me: the sheer simplicity of the art itself, so appropriate to this minimalist museum and the mathematical patterns in evidence in Sandback’s analysis and description. The geometry of the line and the combinatorics of the positions subtly brought powerful mathematics into this simple piece of artwork. The works currently on display at the Pulitzer Gallery appealed both to my creative appreciation for beauty and the mathematical side of my brain. It was a wonderfully enjoyable interplay of aesthetics.
ET COGNOSCETIS VERITATEM ET VERITAS LIBERABIT VOS
SLUH REVIEW VOL. 3 ISSUE 1
A JOURNAL OF FAITH, THOUGHT, AND CIVICS
SLUH Review Volume 3 Platform The wait is over! Welcome to Volume 3 of the SLUH Review, St. Louis U. High’s primary print medium for the discussion and debate of matters of faith, thought, and civics. With the 2012 presidential election speedily approaching us this November, the most important issues facing our nation such as economic, foreign, and social policies are once again in the public spotlight. The SLUH Review was established three years ago for the purpose of providing for the SLUH community a forum to discuss both these temporal issues and also timeless issues such as political, ethical, and theological philosophy, which apply to peoples of all times, locations, and conditions. As a student-run publication, our chief goal is to pursue the Truth. We will accept and publish any essay or article submitted by any student so long as it is relevant to our pursuit and contains no material contradictory to Church teaching. One criticism of the SLUH Review in previous years is that it has been one-sided and that articles have overwhelmingly come from a conservative viewpoint. I sincerely believe that this is an altogether legitimate criticism. For this reason, while I reach out to all students, upperclassmen and underclassmen, to contribute to this forum, I am especially committed this year to engaging those with more liberal persuasions to ensure that the publication is more balanced. My most fervent wish regarding the SLUH Review this year is that while you read it, it will elicit some sort of response from you – a cheer, a scoff, a sigh, a laugh, an eye-rolling – which evinces your personal engagement with the issues and opinions being presented. “Let us go forward together” – Winston Churchill Dominic Lanari, Senior Editor Dominic LaMantia, Junior Editor
JANUARY 18, 2012
Year-Round Education by Luke Reichold, Core Staff With a presidential race quickly approaching, educational reform will be a hot topic. One particular reform suggestion has been to adopt a year-round school year. But is implementing a yearround education (YRE) program really a wise decision? Firstly, both traditional and year-round calendars have approximately 180 days of classes. The objective of a year-round school cycle is not to introduce more days of school, but rather to divide the days differently, with shorter, more frequent breaks. While the traditional school cycle runs, for the most part, as a single block from late August to early June, allowing a single multi-month summer vacation, YRE alternatively follows a pattern consisting of a couple months in school followed by a few weeks on vacation. The most common instructional/vacation patterns, known as the 60/20 calendar and the 45/15 calendar, consist of 60 and 40 days of classes followed by 20 and 15 day breaks, respectively. Year-round education cycles are not just hypothetical ideas, though. The National Association for Year-Round Education reports a 441% growth in the number of students receiving a year-round education since the mid-1980’s and that “more than 2.3 million U.S. public school students attended year-round schools in the 2002-03 school year.” Proponents of the YRE education system cite several reasons arguing its effectiveness. One of the most common notions is that with shorter summer breaks, students are far less likely to forget what they’ve learned during the school year. These increased retention rates allow teachers to spend less time reviewing and more time covering new
AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON
T
BY SAM FENTRESS
HE great trick of every superhero movie—the defining idea of the genre—is that the hero you watch on screen is just like you. The hero has flaws, ugliness, silliness, and humanity. A lack of this sense is what made 2013’s Man of Steel almost unwatchable; Superman was impressive, yes, but human? The best superhero movies do not show us the supreme warrior. They show us the opposite. They show us the broken, ugly hero. Joss Whedon’s Avengers: Age of Ultron hits that bell at a deep tone. It is a film about people by way of things, unlike some earlier Marvel films (Thor felt like a movie very much about a hammer, or a kingdom, or a bridge, but not about people). The “things” in Ultron (Infinity Stones, robots, helicarriers) are on some level unimportant, but Whedon uses them masterfully to help us understand the characters in the film. Take Thor’s hammer, for example. What did mjolnir ever tell us about anything the first three times it showed up? Well, that Thor is strong, okay, really strong. In Ultron, though, Whedon uses the hammer to elucidate: in one scene, we learn that most of the Avengers are at least a little bit self-conscious about their own physical strength (and Captain America might be a little bit tougher than he seems). Great writing is paired with fine performances all around, though we get especially tuned performances from
Ruffalo, Downey Jr, and (perhaps most surprisingly) Renner. Bruce Banner is excruciatingly self-fearing in this movie, and we wonder seriously at the film’s end what the next chapter in his story will be. A subplot involving Renner’s previously unknown family works surprisingly well; it’s a nice way of phasing out a character while providing some breathing room for the mile-a-minute narrative of the film. The ultimate triumph of the film is its sense of humor. Some serious fans were incensed by the constant joking and jostling—superhero movies ought to be more serious, they say. I disagree. There are few things worse than a movie that refuses to let you get to know its protagonist. I have already mentioned Thor and Man of Steel as examples of this. In Ultron,
jokes are Whedon’s magnifying glass. They let us get close, quickly, to less immediate characters like Hawk Eye and James Rhodes. In the first moment of the film, Steve Rogers tells off Tony Stark for saying “shit.” We move forward from the moment quickly, but already a relationship has been established: Iron Man is edgy, and Captain America is not. Seasoned Marvel-goers will recognize the underlying ideological conflict, the clash of consequentialism and objective morality—but not every viewer wants, or needs, to know that. We can watch Whedon’s film at whatever speed we want. As always, Tony Stark remains confusing. Each movie asks us to look at him in a slightly different light. Like the technology he creates, Stark is simultaneously an invaluable asset and ticking time bomb. It is significant that both Ultron and The Vision— a new addition in Ultron—come from Tony Stark. They represent two ways to look at the world. Ultron sees
chaos in humanity’s flaws; Vision appreciates their beauty. The two characters ask us something else. Is Ultron more human or robot? His metal makeup suggests the latter, but his mind comes from Tony Stark. At some point, we must also ask this question about the Iron Man. Avengers: Age of Ultron descends deeper into the big picture questions of the superhero genre than any Marvel movie before it. The problems of the film aren’t small, but they are excusable, and for students of the Marvel school of film, they may be nearly unnoticeable. Marvel—and the larger superhero world—desperately needs movies like Ultron and Guardians of the Galaxy. They give hope to a universe that tends towards spiritless and conservative cinema. Even more, they give great artists like Joss Whedon a chance at wide circulation. Age of Ultron isn’t the final answer to the problems of superhero filmmaking. But it is an important, Marvelsized step in the right direction.
This indicates a Source Four fixture was used. Top number indicates barrel degree, which is a measure of width of the beam. Bottom number is channel.
We asked Brian Luczak to talk us through his lighting design for this year’s “Improvisations 2014.”
Since it was a studio show, these truss lights took the place of the regular house lights, illuminating the seats before and after the show.
This indicates a Source Four Par fixture was used. Top number is channel. The letters on bottom indicate the type of lens, which is comparable to barrel degree.
Strip light directed towards back wall cycled between red/blue/white and were used for mood lighting whenever a team won.
These lights were tightly focused on the team’s space—
—while these were pointed towards the main stage.
Fixtures were hung in pairs, with red-team and blue-team gels (color filter)
THE GAD AND I BY DAVID BURKE
I
T’S hard to imagine what SLUH would be like without Gadfly. At least for me it is. More than any other club, Gadfly has been a defining part of “the SLUH experience” for me. My first interaction with Gadfly came when I was first touring SLUH one school day in my eighth grade year. Gadfly was a footnote. There was an issue sitting on a bench by the English Office. It was mentioned. “That’s cool,” I thought to myself. “That might be something fun to do.” I didn’t know where I wanted to go to high school. Things weren’t all that different when November rolled around. I ended up at SLUH. I spent the first few weeks at SLUH in culture shock. Everything was different. Everywhere was different. Everyone was smarter. I spent quite a bit of time freshmen year unsure if I even belonged. SLUH didn’t feel like home. At that time, I saw two paths for myself: 1) Get out while I can. 2) Power through for four years. I remembered Gadfly. I was interested in Gadfly. Problem was, Gadfly was just as foreign as the rest of the school. I didn’t know how to get in. Little did I know that one of the great secrets of Gadfly is that you can’t really join Gadfly. I would spend time around the GadLab, but only with people I knew. I helped film a segment for “Work Grant Olympics” that was never used. I always knew what was on the next episode but I still didn’t fit in.
Sophomore year I submitted a filler to the magazine. It was very basic and very simple, but it made the back cover. I finally felt ownership in Gadfly. I helped to print that issue. A while later I started editing video for Gadfly TV. The rest is history. Today. Today it’s May 20, 2015. I’ve been done with exams for a while now. I’m graduating this weekend. Yet here I am, up at SLUH, working on Gadfly Magazine and Gadfly TV. Why is Gadfly such a big part of SLUH for me? For me, Gadfly represents my place at SLUH. The GadLab is a home away from home for me. With Gadfly, I’m doing what I love, creating and sharing. Here I can take my ideas, develop them, expand them, and make something great. Gadfly has opened the door for me to create things that I never could have created anywhere else. What makes Gadfly great? Gadfly can be anything and everything. It is infinite possibilites. Even the most bizarre of ideas can happen. Anything can happen. Creativity can flourish. Gadfly has taught me why so many people love SLUH. It has let me meet some of the most talented people SLUH has in its halls. It has helped me to know my teachers better. It has let me be myself. Gadfly taught me to love SLUH. Hopefully I’ve taught you how I love Gadfly (and maybe how to love it yourself).
A Diagram of My Throat Humbles and jumbles of sweet nothings Crumbled into word-packaged dumplings. Unmoving through mucus without muscle All holding and halting through a cave unwilling. Beside tales are triumphs, along matrixes are martyrs In between lie introductions, only for starters. Soliloquies by symphonies that smear against symmetry Formulas ferment near dormant definitions. Proofs press, solutions suffocate And textbooks blockade, denying any chance to communicate. Beneath the burden, the cave is caved in. Never getting out a thought from him. —Kevin Strader Fight Club His glinting teeth let slip a scream. I screamed, too, as his horse-like thighs hot and heavy as they were pushed his sweating body in a full-tilt charge. The blade whistled, it seemed, as it sliced air, ear. Blood dripped and sizzled on my boiling skin and I laughed and lunged back, lungs gulping, heart thumping. His gut crumpled slick and sallow around my foot but his grunting mug got it the worst.
Screw You, Sisyphus Taste this fudge, Oh so very yummy, As I dream of it Being in my tummy. I can’t wait for dessert Even if I’m in the dessert.
—Giuseppe Vitellaro
—Joe Godar